Processing facilities are often managed using process control systems. Example processing facilities include manufacturing plants, chemical plants, crude oil refineries, ore processing plants, and paper or pulp manufacturing and processing plants. Among other operations, process control systems typically manage the use of motors, valves, and other industrial equipment in the processing facilities.
In conventional process control systems, controllers are often used to control the operation of the industrial equipment in the processing facilities. The controllers could, for example, monitor the operation of the industrial equipment, provide control signals to the industrial equipment, and generate alarms when malfunctions are detected.
One example of a conventional controller is the Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller, which is very common in industrial control systems. These types of controllers are often “tuned” or adjusted during operation, which typically involves altering parameters of the controllers to ensure more reliable or accurate operations. Conventional controllers also typically operate using models of the processes being controlled. The models allow the controllers to determine, based on input signals from sensors or other data, how to control the industrial equipment. For long-term and successful control of an industrial process, it is often necessary to perform “system identification” in order to generate an accurate model of the process.